About

Rocky and Rhoda (Ariel Speedwagon and Damien Luxe) are America’s longest-running, hardest-touring, and most beloved lesbian performance duo — but, there’s a problem with their show about Lesbian Ancestry…

How long *have* queers been fighting? How *do* you resolve the evil parts of your history? Just *how many* lesbian bars are there in the world? Rocky and Rhoda’s Lesbian Past take on these questions, gold sequins and all.

Downtown performers Ariel Speedwagon and Damien Luxe presented this never-before-staged show, directed by Austin director Rudy Ramirez Wednesday March 16, 2016 on the notorious Dixon Place main stage.

Thier other work and collaborations have been seen in NYC at LaMama ETC, Dixon Place, Le Petit Versailles, 25 CPW Gallery, the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics, Everybooty, Pussy Faggot, Hey Queen!, BGSQD, JACK Theatre, The Opentoe Peepshoe, NYU, the New School; across the US at The Rotunda (Philadelphia), the Charm City Kitty Club (Baltimore), at UT Austin, Yale University, Duke University, the CLPP Conference, the Femme Conference, the Allied Media Conference, and across Canada at Perver/cite, The Encuentro, Queeruption, and plenty of other places.

Rocky and Rhoda’s Lesbian Past is a vaudeville and theatre extravaganza featuring original songs, the queer art of genealogy, historical reenactments, and very big questions about history, herstory, and the legacies we inherit. Infighting! Conflict! Ancestry! Song! Dance! Rocky and Rhoda’s Lesbian Past has it all.

Rocky & Rhoda are created and performed by Ariel Speedwagon and Damien Luxe

Ariel “Speedwagon” Federow is an interdisciplinary performing artist, emcee, and itinerant reporter. She’s worked with the Ballez, the AO Movement Collective, and Butch Burlesque among other. She’s choreographed genital puppets for dyke marches, done vaudeville about tenant’s rights, and tap danced for liberation. Her own work and collaborations have been seen at LaMama ETC, Dixon Place, the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics, Everybooty, Pussy Faggot, and Hey Queen!. Head reporter, SJNN. 2012 Hemispheric Institute Affiliated Emerging Artist. Miss JewSA 5772. Bingo host. Clown about town. http://www.arielspeedwagon.com

Damien Luxe is a multimedia artist who creates solo and troupe performance. She’s toured the US and Canada since 2004 with feminist live art work. She is co-founder of Heels on Wheels, a working-class-led, multi-racial queer femme performance troupe. She is co-editor of the 2015 Lambda Literary award-winning anthology Glitter and Grit. Damien works as an archival catalog builder by day: www.femmetech.org. Weird videos, radical narratives, and a feminist, dystopic, science fiction novel can be found online at: damienluxe.com / tw: @hadassahdamien / ig: @ladydluxe